Federal Judge Rejects Sanofi's Bid In Taxotere MDL

Federal Judge Rejects Sanofi's Bid In Taxotere MDL

Introduction

Sanofi's bid for summary judgment in the second bellwether case of Taxotere in multidistrict litigation has been rejected by a federal judge.

The lawsuit alleges that the plaintiff suffered from permanent hair loss due to the usage of Sanofi's drug Taxotere. The attorneys representing the company are not happy with the ruling and stated that they would take the court's decision sportingly and keep the documents and facts in front of the jury to prove that Sanofi is not responsible for the plaintiff's hair loss. The trial of the plaintiff's lawsuit will begin on August 23, 2021.

The company's attorneys stated that as per the "learned intermediary" doctrine of Louisiana, the drugmaker needs to warn the doctors and not the patients. Hence, the drugmaker is not at fault as even the doctor mentioned that he would have prescribed the drug even after the label warning on the product.

The company even raised a motion in the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in another case of the MDL. The plaintiff in the lawsuit completely believed in the doctor and did not ask for any other options apart from Taxotere.

Currently, Sanofi faces 12,000 product liability cases that allege the company of distributing and manufacturing Taxotere, a chemotherapy drug linked to permanent hair loss among the users. The company even faces lawsuits in different state courts across the U.S., including New Jersey, California, and Delaware. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Taxotere in 1996. Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt is overlooking the Taxotere lawsuits, which are consolidated under MDL No. 2740 IN RE: Taxotere (Docetaxel) Products Liability Litigation in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.